


Cat Pictures

by Sachiko13



Series: The Journalist and her Cat Superhero [1]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alyanoir, Break Up, Comedy, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Light Angst, Microscopic Angst, Minor Alya Césaire/Nino Lahiffe, alya and adrien generate chaos, alyadrien, then they bond over chaos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-04
Updated: 2020-05-04
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:33:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24009661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sachiko13/pseuds/Sachiko13
Summary: At some point, she had gone from taking covert photos of the hero for her blog, to taking selfies with him to add to her personal collection.In which Alya finds an unexpected friend in Chat Noir.
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir & Alya Césaire, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Alya Césaire
Series: The Journalist and her Cat Superhero [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1731586
Comments: 14
Kudos: 73





	Cat Pictures

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this pretty much in one sitting a while ago, and editing it was horrendous. Thanks to my ever-faithful Yummychii for betaing it for me.

Alya was walking down a dimly lit Parisian street, bag heavy with books and fingers sore from hours of excessive speed-typing.

Going home late was becoming a habit of hers. After she started attending university, Alya realised that juggling time was even more challenging than before. Between keeping the Ladyblog up to date and making time for her friends and family, she now had an extra large pile of assignments to finish on top of everything. She often spent hours holed up in the school library or a nearby café working on her articles and essays. Today had been the same. By the time she packed her things and headed out for some well-deserved rest, it was already dark outside. 

She didn’t hate being busy. Her days might have been filled to the brim, but they were filled to the brim with things she enjoyed doing. And as an added bonus, it took her mind away from the thoughts she wanted to avoid.

A loud clunk resounding above her made Alya snap her head up. There was a large black figure sitting on the street lamp. Due to the blinding light of the lamp itself, she couldn’t make out much save for two acidic green spots, but even that was enough for her to loosen up in relief.

“Good evening, miss Journalist,” the shadow greeted her. 

“Chat Noir.” she offered weakly. “On patrol?”

“Yep.” he said and jumped down from his post, his tail-belt flailing behind him. He landed flawlessly on the pavement right before her. 

“So you’re checking up on me?” The question came out a bit strangled instead of the witty remark she had wanted it to be, and she tightly gripped the strap of her backpack in unease.

He noticed her odd demeanor. With a pensive frown, he leaned a bit closer to her.

“I kind of am? Are you doing okay?” he asked with more than a hint of concern. “It’s been only a week.” 

“Since I got akumatized again, yeah.” She rolled her eyes but it had no energy behind it, and neither did the rigid smile on her face. “No black butterflies anywhere nearby since then, thank you very much.”

A beat of silence. 

“Well, that’s another thing.” he fired nonchalantly. “I was kind of thinking about the... other stuff that happened.” 

Technically, they were connected. That ‘other stuff’ was the reason she got akumatized in the first place. But Alya knew well what he had meant, and didn’t feel like brushing him off even though the topic was something she preferred to avoid with most people. Definitely not after everything he’d done for her last week.

Letting the smile fall off her face, Alya sighed. “I’m as fine as I can be, I guess. Trying to think about other things, and it’s more or less working.”

“I’m glad then,” he nodded with a smile much softer than his usual grins. She had found it weird on him when she had seen it once or twice before, quite unlike the image she had of the hero. Now, she found it kind of sweet.

It didn’t stay on his face for too long, though - with a single blink, Chat Noir’s eyes glistened with mischief and a cheshire grin plastered on his face. 

“Anyway, what are you doing being out so  _ claw _ fully late? Snooping  _ paw _ -round for some superhero pictures, perhaps?” 

Alya couldn’t help but smile a little. Chat’s hands were resting on his lower back and he leaned towards her, looking like an actual cat with his quirky mannerisms.

“If you think I’m wandering around like a stray cat, you’d be wrong. I’m quite a busy girl, dear Chat.” she offered with a finger wag.

“Well, too bad. I was  _ feline  _ pretty photogenic tonight.” 

Chat hunched forward and swiped at the air in what was apparently supposed to be a pose. Instead, he looked like a cat chasing an invisible toy, and the image made Alya actually snort. With the same determination, he proceeded to get on all fours and began to speed walk around her as if he had just spotted a laser pointer. Due to how he had to bend his limbs to actually manage the movement, it looked absolutely ridiculous. By the time he was done with his little performance, Alya was positively cackling.

“Pretty good, right?” he winked at her. “Bet you regret not taking pictures of that!” 

“Actually, I took one when you were too busy with your nose to the ground.” 

“What?” he mouthed out, color leaving his face, making her chuckle a little again. “Oh  _ please,  _ don’t post it to the blog! LB won’t let me hear the end of it…” 

“I’m tempted to…But I owe you one, so I guess I’ll just keep it. For now.”

He heaved a sigh of relief before giving her another innocent smile. This time, she returned it. 

Who knew this silly cat boy would be so good at cheering people up? She had known that he was quite the jester and a hopeless flirt, according to Ladybug, but she never thought him to be this sensible. Usually it was the spotted heroine who comforted the akumatized victims after everything was over… or was it? Perhaps Alya was just too busy chasing after the Lady with beeping earrings and the prospect of identity reveals, not noticing the effort Chat put in. Maybe it wouldn’t ever cross her mind if it weren’t for last week.

It had been her…  _ their  _ breaking point. She and Nino hadn’t been doing so hot for a while now, for various reasons. University opened their eyes to new dreams and hobbies, and slowly, they came to realize that their preferred lifestyles were conflicting with each other. Their priorities were different, their schedules mismatched, and there were weeks where they barely saw each other.

At some point, Alya realized she stopped missing Nino as much as she used to. She didn’t need a hug from him to survive the day, didn’t feel hungry for his presence on a free evening. Sometimes, she was happier to not hear from him for a while because she knew they’d end up arguing about what they wanted to do again. Alya didn’t want to change her life, the life she had worked hard to get. She was feeling unhappy in the things she was doing and she was sick of it. 

After talking it through and bearing their hearts to each other, they concluded that their relationship had no future. And it hurt, it hurt so much, to end their four years together. Because Nino was still amazing - he was the cool DJ boyfriend that played the songs she liked without her ever telling him which ones she did like, the thoughtful boyfriend that used to cuddle her to sleep and bring her coffees on sleepless nights, the amazing boyfriend supporting the craziest of her ideas without batting an eye. 

They both cried, talked, kissed, before he left her that evening, never to come back to what they used to have. The realization only shattered her heart further. Shattered it enough that a black butterfly found nothing easier than to nestle in those cracks. 

When she came to afterwards, both the superheroes looked much more worn out than usual. Ladybug put an arm over her shoulder and her eyes were full of care and worry. She seemed to be barely standing, but the look on her face made it seem like she was determined to talk to Alya about whatever had happened. That was when her earrings beeped and stopped her from saying anything. Even though there was a last spot blinking on them, though, Ladybug seemed to be reluctant to leave. 

That was when Chat Noir came over to them with a wobbly step rivaling his partner and told her to ‘leave Alya to him and go’. Alya had been surprised at the serious, determined look in his eyes at that moment. Ladybug seemed to accept that, though, and with a soft apology, she had swung away.

She never focused on Chat Noir in the way she pined over Ladybug. She had interviewed him numerous times, of course, and was present at enough of their fights to have a good idea of what he was like. But it was the worst Friday evening of her life when she found out what an amazing  _ hero  _ the black tomcat actually was. 

When Alya refused the taxi ride home he offered and said she'd rather walk, he asked her whether she wanted company. It was at that moment when she realized that part of the grief inside her was an astringent loneliness. She didn't want to be left alone, with everything still too raw. 

Alya considered calling Marinette then, but she wasn't ready for that. Marinette had known Nino for so long, and it would be so much harder to talk about everything with her right now. And so she agreed. 

Looking back on it, they had probably looked a bit bizarre, the cat superhero walking nonchalantly alongside her little depressed self in the middle of Paris. He tried to make small talk the whole time, which usually just resulted in awkward silence from her. And then they got closer to her house, and she realized she didn't really want to go home either. 

'I know how that feels,' he said when she had muttered that without realizing. And then, in a move she would never expect of a guy she didn't really know, especially a guy that probably had other things to do, like  _ being a superhero _ , he scooped her into his arms and set her down on a random rooftop. He had left her there, only to come back with a pack of canned apple cider seconds later. 

The gesture seemed to break her, and after taking her first sip, the dams of her heart opened up and everything started coming out of her mouth like a flood. And Chat Noir actually listened. Didn't interrupt her ranting, but added little questions and comments, sometimes trying to add something positive or a dumb pun. And she told him pretty much everything. 

How she had broken up with her boyfriend, how shitty it felt. After her third cider, she grew feisty and started talking about all the things that pissed her off about Nino. Chat, finishing his third as well, was laughing his ass off at some of the more embarrassing stories, which only prompted her to spitefully spice them up and enjoy it herself. 

When she had no more to badmouth, she began recounting the things she  _ loved  _ about Nino, and slowly ended up in another crying meltdown. Chat Noir just circled his arm around her shoulders and offered her comfort while she cried. His arm was awkwardly rigid, but his sad smile and his comforting promises of 'it'll be okay' felt very genuine. 

When he finally left her at her apartment door, Alya felt like the mountain of sadness piled on her back became just a little bit smaller. And it was thanks to him. The caring cat who wasn't just an interesting superhero specimen anymore - he had become a friend. 

It was strange, but then, what about that Friday evening hadn't been? 

-

"Lost in thought?" Chat snapped her out of her reminiscing. His eyes were seeping into hers with that inhuman neon shine. 

"Kind of," she supplied. "Hey, aren't you in the middle of patrol? You sure you can be hanging around here?"

"Between the two of us," he leaned over, putting a hand in front of his mouth secretively, "patrolling alone is kinda boring, and I know nothing’s really happening unless there’s someone's screaming." 

"Is that an official statement?" she teased, and he pouted. 

"Not fair, miss Journalist. I'm being nice and honest over here, and you keep  _ meow- _ king scoops out of everything. Do you wanna get me out of your  _ fur  _ or something?"

"Who knew you were such a gullible guy… Okay, okay." she conceded when his pout grew to gigantic proportions. "No more scoops tonight, I promise."

“Does that mean I'm good company?" he grinned. 

"Well… You're uh… a good friend?" she tried awkwardly. Would it be weird to call a superhero a friend? 

It was the right thing to say, given how Chat Noir's green orbs brightened.

"Well, since you're so bored, Cat-man, wanna walk and talk?" she offered. Chat Noir was becoming a very curious existence to her, and when Alya got curious, she wouldn’t hesitate to dig deeper.

"Sure thing, Paparazzi girl." he quipped back smoothly. 

And so she ended up with the cat in tow once again. Alya was surprised at how easy the banter between them was, and he was too, given the curious acidic green stares at some of her remarks, puns included. At least hers were better than most of Chat's, but she had to give him props for keeping the cat theme. Chat was definitely witty. Witty and funny in the dorky way she found a bit insufferable with most boys, but Chat had enough charisma to pull it off nicely.

They didn't really talk about anything of substance, or at least it looked like they didn't on the surface. Inside, Alya was making mental notes on every little fact he admitted about himself. Favourite colours, hobbies. Favourite food… 

That was when Alya was reminded that she hadn't eaten anything since lunch. It was usually Nino that called her up for dinner or brought something for her when she immersed herself in an article.

She brushed the thought away and turned to her feline companion. 

"Hey, I'm kinda hungry. You mind if we stop by somewhere?" she asked, before it hit her how weird the situation was. She was hanging out with Chat Noir, and just asked him if he wanted to get food. Probably trashy fast food since it was already pretty late. 

When he had agreed and Alya surmised that the nearest food thing was a McDonald’s, the oddness of it all was far from over. 

They both ended up choosing a burger with fries to go, along with a McFlurry because Chat was staring at the menu item with puppy… kitty eyes. At first, she wanted to treat him to his meal, but he actually pulled a stack of euro bills out of his suit's pocket. When she raised an eyebrow, he just tilted his head in confusion. 

"What? How do you think I bought the cider last time?" 

She hadn’t really thought about that, really. 

"Do you do this kind of thing often?" she asked, mentally conflicted. Something about a superhero carrying money around like a regular human really miffed her… though she knew it was probably comic fangirl bias. "Actually, how did they sell you that cider without an ID?" 

Was becoming a grocery store clerk the key to figuring superhero identities? If so, she needed to hunt down the ones that were hiring and immediately start writing self-flattering CVs.

But her plotting was shot down by another cheshire impression. "Being a superhero has its perks."

She wondered if he was even of age. She had a feeling he wasn't too far from her in those terms - he had a pretty decent growth spurt around the time her high school friends had, after all. 

They left as soon as they got their food, avoiding the curious stares from the other customers. Walking towards another less populated street, they sat down on a bench and opened their packages. 

Most people she knew didn't really like McDonald’s, and her mom thought it to be the bane of humanity, so Alya got to eat it only a few times a year. That was probably why she found it a sort of an enjoyable guilty pleasure. 

She wasn't on the level of Chat Noir, though. He studied the bun with a stony gaze, as if it were a foreign substance, took a pensive tiny bite with a look of pure wonder and then proceeded to inhale the whole thing. He then reached some sort of nirvana as he chewed down the fries one by one, seemingly falling love anew each time he put one of those oversalted barbeque sauce coated things into his mouth. Alya didn't think she'd ever seen  _ anyone _ this happy over fast food. 

“I take it you don’t eat McDonald’s often.” she said when he reached for the ice cream. She had to prevent him from speed-eating it like the rest of his food somehow, because she actually wanted to have some. 

“More like never,” he admitted. “I ca- don’t really eat junk food. Need to keep in shape, and whatnot.” 

“Hmm. You basically vacuumed that burger out of existence, so you probably liked it, right?” 

He choked a little on his cola. “Ye-yeah?”

“Well, it’s not really my business, but maybe some junk food once in a while would do you only good. You don’t  _ look  _ like you need a diet, anyway.”

“Smitten by my good looks, miss?” he waggled his eyebrows, grabbing the flurry. 

She gave him a look-over. Well, he was a well-shaped young man in a tight suit. What was not to admire?

“I mean, you’ve got a nice butt.”

The unexpected compliment instead of a tease back made him stop, and Alya used that moment to steal the ice cream from him.

“Hey! Not fair!” he moaned unhappily and swiped at the cup. 

They spent a while fighting over it, before she let him have it out of pity, and he gobbled it down fast enough to get a brain freeze. Alya laughed at him, even taking a picture of his grimace. He didn’t seem to notice, which made it even funnier to her. 

It was well past the time she had planned to get home when Chat Noir once again left her at her doorstep, but she didn’t mind in the slightest. She hadn’t laughed and joked this much in a while, and she had needed it. 

As she lay in bed that night, she wondered if she’d get to hang out with her new friend again. Opening her phone gallery, the two pictures she had taken popped out, making her snicker again. She filed them into a separate new folder, pausing at the folder name. After a bit of contemplation, she typed in ‘Cat Pictures’, and with a grin, put her phone down and dozed off to dreamland. 

\---

Quite unexpectedly, Alya’s Cat Picture collection was filling up quite nicely within the span of a few months. At first, she walked around with Chat Noir on occasional late evenings where he had a lone patrol, just like before, but when one of those nights got interrupted by an unexpected akuma attack, they agreed on meeting during some of their free evenings instead. 

That was the moment it turned from nonchalant encounters to actual hanging out. Usually, it was still walking around the city without a real purpose save for exploration and snacking. Getting the cat boy to try more junk food and sweets became Alya’s mission at some point, and the photos of Chat feasting on things new to him never stopped making her smile. There was just something uplifting about his wonder-filled eyes. 

There were times where instead of just wandering around, they made actual plans, based on something they joked about or dared each other with. 

They actually went to the cinema once. Alya had dared Chat to see a horror movie with her, anticipating a great scaredy cat shot for her gallery. The prelude was a selfie at the ticket gate, with the most hilarious thing about the photo being the baffled faces of the people behind them. The actual photo she took during the movie was a bit of a disappointment to Alya though - as the actual jumpscare happened, he glomped her arm in shock, which made her drop the phone she had focused at him and get nothing but a blurry image of them both as a result. She kept it as a memento anyway. 

After the glare they got from Alya’s neighbor because of her photo stunt and the endless stares Chat got, they decided that going to the movies wasn’t happening again. Movie nights were a different thing altogether, though. 

Alya loved those evenings. They started meeting up almost every friday, when Alya’s sisters had sleepovers and her parents went out. They had marathons of trashy romance flicks not even Marinette could handle watching with her, and Chat had the incredible ability to get into them way too much. In return, he coaxed her into watching anime, and with reluctance she had to admit some of the stuff was really good. They also delved into gaming, and even though fighting games weren’t Alya’s forte, she found out she loved beating the kitten at platformers and racing games. 

Sometimes, they just got to talking and wouldn’t stop until it was way too late. Chat was a great listener in general, and he was slowly opening up to her too. He had his bad days as well, and she did her best to be there for him, just like he did for her. 

There were the little things, too. Like the way they finished each other’s jokes as time went on. Their high-fives. Their mock-brawls when gaming got too heated. The nice feeling of ruffling his hair. The way he put her arms over her and let her lean into him after a particularly long week. The times when they sat on her bed and watched a movie with their shoulders glued to each other, or her stretching her legs over his when she was lazy.

She’d missed that kind of contact. She had Marinette as her best friend, but the girl was just one person. A very busy one, with too much work to have sleepovers and friendly cuddles often enough for Alya to not be touch deprived. 

Alya was a very contact person, and properly realized that only when her and Nino were not a thing anymore. Chat seemed to share her sentiments - he was a bit awkward at first, but now they both appreciated it.

One night, when she was down with a cold, he spent the whole evening talking with her and they had fallen asleep on each other. As morning came, and Alya realized she’d blacked out with a human-shaped blank space between her and the wall, she felt a spark of loneliness.

\---

That spark was a prelude to a fire. She hadn’t known then, hadn’t known until a particularly cold winter Friday. Christmas was near and her house once again empty, and Alya was suffering because of a joke she had made last week. 

_ I didn’t get to feed you any sweets lately, tomcat, maybe we should make some gingerbread men to make up for it. _

His acidic greens  _ sparkled,  _ and she couldn’t talk him out of it no matter how much she tried. And now here she was, with a santa hat on her head and an apron tied around her waist, looking at the rolling pin in her hand with utter despair. Next to her, Chat was grinning like a madman, looking LSD tiers of silly with her dad’s muscle-print apron and a reindeer headband stuck in front of his cat ears. She didn’t even know where he found it. He was holding a bag of flour in his clawed hands, a wonder it didn’t burst yet.

“This is going to be great,” she grumbled as she pinned the note with the recipe onto the fridge.

“It is!” Chat exclaimed, as if unaware of the cataclysmic mood of his baking partner.

Alya’s predictions proved right. She was no baker - that honorable title fell to Marinette, and the fact that Alya couldn’t bake for shit even after years of being best friends with her was definitely a sign. And Chat… if there was anything she had learnt these past few months, it was that Chat was a walking harbinger of chaos, both intentionally and unintentionally. It was a given, seeing how he was the embodiment of unlucky black cats and  _ destruction,  _ on top of being a total Dorkus McDorkington. 

In short, it took them one flour explosion and two eggs all over Chat’s claws before they finally got the dough finished. Alya had to admit she had fun doing it though. Most things were fun with Chat as company, really.

They were pretty tired by the time they got their gingerbread men inside the oven, but they both felt pretty accomplished. With her mood much better than at the beginning, Alya finally took out her phone and took a quick selfie with him crouching in front of the oven in the background. 

She zoomed in on the photo, amused at him excitedly watching his little bread children bake. Chat came closer and leaned over her shoulder to check the picture, before chuckling right into her ear. 

“You’ve got some dough on your cheek,” he muttered. He grazed his claw gently over the spot. 

She turned to him as he put the finger in his mouth, tasting the dough, and froze. So did he, finger stuck in his mouth, inhuman greens melting into her a bit more than usual. His chest was burning her back.

“Is it… is it good?” she mumbled, unsure if what she was saying were words, because his presence, his face so close to hers, was suddenly way too distracting. 

“Mm.” he said, and the sound reverberated from his chest onto her, like a purr. His gaze shifted from surprise to calm before the storm within a second, and she knew if she didn’t do something, she would be swept in.

She didn’t do a thing,

She let Chat Noir lean in and seize her lips, she let him spin her around and pressed herself against him. She let him take her in his arms as she hugged his waist.

The fire had been lit. They let their lips smack against each other with no hesitation or second guessing, open to their own feelings, as they had always been. It felt  _ right. _

His claws slid into her hair and she loved the way they massaged her scalp. When he underestimated his strength and scratched her with them, she pulled at his cat ears, eliciting a gasp in a semblance of apology, but he didn’t let go of her. 

Between making out while being pushed to the kitchen table, Alya exploring her newfound spandex fetish and Chat purring to high heaven, their gingerbread men burned. Chat had the capacity in him to look devastated as he embraced her side tightly. Alya just laughed at him.

“You wanna try baking some more, or continue where we left off?” she asked him with a sultry smile, hands over his neck. 

He mirrored her expression as he spoke out in that deep hum that was beginning to kill her from inside.

“Both.” the cheeky brat actually said, before kissing her and sliding his tongue over her lips.

Out of spite (for herself?), they did do a second batch. Lest to say, it was a complete disaster. She had a lot of explaining to do when her parents came home later in the night, when she had just managed to persuade him (and herself) to get out before they got found out. In her defense, she did try to clean up. But it was hard to do anything while an amazingly built spandex clad cat boy kept pulling you into his lap while you tried to do so. 

Honestly, how she  _ hadn’t  _ been into him before was the bigger mystery to her.

\---

She was supposed to write an article today. And do like a dozen other things. But all was forgotten, because of a particularly distracting blond claiming her time, attention, and personal space once again. 

Alya wondered how the hell she’d gotten from wanting to expose Chat Noir’s identity and post secretly taken photos of him to not exposing yet dating Chat Noir and taking selfies with him to keep to herself. 

But she knew that she couldn’t really care. She didn’t really feel bothered about anything when she was with him. Perhaps she was getting infected with his cat tendencies - all she needed to cheer up nowadays was cuddles and pats from him. Well, that and his scientific brain to help her with her Statistics course homework. 

Although it did feel a bit sad that she didn’t have to do as much investigation when it came to Paris’ hero team’s activities, since all she had to do was ask.

“So, how was patrol yesterday?”

“Well,” he began, leaning into her chair as it crackled below them, “Ladybug asked me, 'are you into Alya'?”

"What did you tell her?" Alya asked, wiggling herself in his lap. 

"I told her," he chuckled, and it was such a dreamy, love-drunk sound, "I am  _ so  _ into Alya."

  
  



End file.
